Alibaba, Alphabet, Amazon, Baidu, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix and Tencent together spent $46.6bn (+49.4% year-on-year) on advertising last year. This accounted for 6% of all ad investment globally.

The figures appear in a new study by the World Advertising Research Council on advertising investment by the eight major digital platforms.

On the current trajectory, Big Tech’s share of global ad spend will surpass 10% by 2030. The study says Big Tech’s spend on advertising is also growing faster (+49.4%) than categories such as media and publishing (+34%), technology and electronics (+26%) and retail (+21%).

Analysis by the council found that Big Tech contributed more than a tenth (10.4%) of all global adspend growth in 2021.